Another snoozer at Texas. As bad as the coverage was (as usual), it was even worse with all the laps run under caution! I know that Nascar stopped them racing back to the caution for safety reasons, but it takes them at least 5 extra laps to sort things out after every yellow! This is getting ridiculous. And I'm getting real tired of having Mike Joy tell me what an "exciting" race it was. Yes, the final 5 laps were good, but 5 laps doesn't make a good race. They still can barely pass, and still can't run two wide. And now they're calling this "The Great American Race Track"? Great for what? Lots of toilets? Lots of concessions? Not because of the racing!Sally :?

And now they're calling this "The Great American Race Track"? Great for what? Lots of toilets? Lots of concessions? Not because of the racing!Sally :?

You're the third person I've heard complain about this new nickname for the track since this weekend I'm not sure if this is something that TV came up with or it originated with Bruton Smith's PR folks. Either way, I agree it's a silly name for a track that produces such bad racing. Okay, except for those last few laps. :wink:

I must correct womething I said. Texas is calling itself "The Great American Speedway". I'm pretty sure it's coming from SMI's PR department. (Ya gotta have a gimmick). Desmond, at least a streaker or flasher would have given us something interesting to watch! But you're absolutely right...300 laps of boredom, and 34 laps of racing. Ugly.Sally

Cheryl, I believe it was Bruton himself, or his PR people who came up with that moniker. Anyway, save for those last few laps, the race on the whole was another snoozefest to me. Let's face it folks, we are too demanding. We are acting entirely selfish in expecting to see good racing in the four hours it takes to view a race. Cheryl, your article concerning the busch race is bullseye. While I fault both networks in their overexposure of a non-champion(Earnhardt Jr.) during a busch race, what happened over the weekend might have been the worst i've seen. If the long mouth idiots in the booth weren't speaking about Jr., they kept going to the shot of Truex Jr. in his car, or they kept showing live shots of Earnhardt Jr. in the production truck. It's a shame because the busch drivers deserve their saturday in the spotlight, not to mention their sponsors.I will be very interested to see Cheryl's review of the Cup race at Texas.

Well, they want it to mimic football and since the Cowboys were always called America's Team they must want to equal that in some manner. I can't remember if it was during the Busch or Cup race that Jeannie Zelasko referred to someone as a quarterback and how he was throwing his touchdown at Texas (something to that effect). I did not keep notes so the boredom of the 2 races kind of passed through rather than staying in my mind as there was nothing mindboggling in either broadcast since the Busch broadcast was basically about Jr and his new apprenticeship into the booth (he did seem embarrassed at times due to the attention) and they Cup race was all about Kasey at the bat. I am going to hold rating the broadcast for a while as I am still impressed that they ran so many laps at the end without commercial but am so mad at Slaughter that I still can't concentrate on the real broadcast. :x

Vivian...there was a REAL broadcast? Where? When? Out of curiosity, during the broadcast I timed the ad/racing ratio. While there were exceptions, for the majority of the race we were treated to 4 minutes of racing sandwiched between 2:30 to 3 minutes of ads. I'm not counting the times during the E-X-T-E-N-D-E-D yellow flag laps that they got in 5-6 min. of ads, or the 4 times they showed more than 10 minutes of uninterrupted racing. They call this a race broadcast?Sally

Now, Sally, be nice. It was a broadcast, maybe not a good one but still was real or otherwise how would I have watched that many commercials with a bit of racing thrown in between, especially the last laps which made the day seem real complete as it was a Sunday during race season and tv was available to show us a little of what was happening at the TMS? :wink:

Viv, I think you hit the nail on the head! TV thinks it is doing US a favor to make any racing at all available to fans! We should be grateful, no matter how bad the coverage, how inept the announcers, because they have condescended to show at least part of the races! In fact, condescention, from TV& Nascar, seems to be the prevailing attitude toward the "OLD" fans. I noticed that the TV numbers for Texas are "incomplete" so far. Wonder if that means they need time to make it seem as if more people were interested in watching the parade from Texas?Sally